That Thing You’re Feeling in Your 40’s and 50’s

As a GenX’er in your 40’s or 50’s, you may have noticed something lately . . .

A longing for something that you can’t quite put your finger on.

Something that feels “off” in your life.

Maybe some lostness, restlessness, or boredom.

Pangs of hunger that leave you wondering “is this all there is?”

A tugging at your heart or soul that leaves you feeling like there is an unlived life that you haven’t yet explored.

A sense that somewhere along the way you got off the path of who you thought you’d become and where you thought you’d be in life.

If any of that hits home for you, let me tell you that this is all totally normal!

Believe it or not, there is nothing wrong with you for having these wonderings . . . these longings.

Then we spend our 20’s and 30’s preparing for and becoming adept at our career or profession, trying to work our way up some illusory ladder so that we can maximize our earning potential.

Some of us also spend that time cultivating a marriage and maybe taking care of family. Others of us spend that time navigating single life and taking care of ourselves.

We try to build up our social circles and networks. Join various clubs and organizations.

Settle into a home or community. Buy a car or two. Collect things that make us feel like we’ve “made it.”

And along the way of those first 30 years, we’ve gradually started to leave parts of ourselves behind. We’ve thought that we were “becoming who we were supposed to be,” when in reality, we’ve been becoming who our parents, society, partners, friends, and profession wanted us to be.

As Robert Johnson, author of Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, explains:

“There are elements we had to leave behind, elements that had to be ‘unchosen’ in order to produce a cultured life.” (at 49).

Then, by the time we hit our 40’s and 50’s,

“the cultural process is mostly complete–and very dry. It is as if we have wrung all the energy out of our character . . . . We are suddenly subject to explosions that have the power to overturn the product we have worked so hard to create. We may fall in love, break up a marriage, storm out of a job in desperation as we try to relieve ourselves of this monotony.” (Johnson at 49).

This is why it is vital for GenX’ers to shed the outdated notions of thinking we can navigate this period of our lives all on our own.

It’s not our lives we need to blow up. What we need to blow up are the socialized belief systems that got us to our “unchosen” life. The socializations, belief systems, and patterns that allowed us to leave behind parts of ourselves from which we now feel disconnected.

“These are extremely dangerous moments, but they can set the stage for a whole new phase of life.” (Johnson at 49).

And in the face of these extremely dangerous moments, I’m want to urge GenX’ers to lean into finding and accepting more support.

4 Benefits of Getting support

I started working with a new coach recently to support me through the dark periods I was experiencing in April and May. During our first session, she recommended—or rather, strongly urged—that I get a therapist.

I’ll admit that my initial, gut reaction at the mention of getting a therapist made me cringe. I’m 51 years old, and the only time I tried to see a therapist was after my mom died. I think I went to two sessions before deciding that therapy (or more accurately, that therapist) wasn’t for me. That was 11 years ago, and I’ve never been back to therapy since.

So when my coach urged me to seek out a therapist, I noticed all the old messaging come up. Messages that I should be able to “do it all on my own” and, if I couldn’t do it on my own, that there was something “wrong with me.” Messages of shame around the notion of getting a therapist. Messages about how needing a therapist meant that I had failed at being able to handle things on my own.

Basically, I was immediately inundated with all the bullshit messaging from the 70’s and 80’s that we were fed growing up to make us believe that we’re supposed to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, suck it up, and never ask for help. Can we say #latchkeykids?

Then, my more enlightened self chimed in to swat that messaging out of my mind. So, I swallowed my delusional pride that made me think I was too strong for a therapist, met my shame with some compassion, and sought out and hired a therapist.

But here’s what I’ve learned about the benefits of asking for and receiving support:

• Getting emotional support: Our 40’s and 50’s can be a shitshow. A time of significant change and uncertainty. This stage of our lives therefore is a critical time to start getting support for the emotional roller coaster that we ride on a daily basis. From hormonal changes, to questions about careers, to watching kids leave the house, to caring for aging parents, to struggling with finances, to concerns about our own health, our 40’s and 50’s are not for the faint of heart. And they certainly are not meant for us to navigate alone. Getting support for ourselves during these decades is critical to getting through this chapter of life with some semblance of peace and ease. Because look . . . it ain’t gettin’ any easier from here on out! So if we’re not used to asking for help now, do you think it’s going to be any easier for us to ask for support in our 60’s and beyond? So why not start training our muscle of asking for support now, before we really need to exercise that muscle in the next chapter of our lives?

• Discovering who we are: As I said, GenX’ers have spent the first part of our lives having to forget and leave behind a lot of who we really are. We’ve learned to bury the gold within us. And the process of excavating that gold is not a one-person job. It’s vital to get support as we do that excavation so that we can remember who we really are . . . so that we can reclaim the parts of ourselves that we’ve left behind. It’s like going into a dark cave . . . not only would you probably want to have a buddy to go along with you, but you’ll also need a headlamp to guide you. Think of getting support like a headlamp.

• Finding our own path: Most GenX’ers also have spent the first part of their lives following the path that family, society, culture, or careers laid out. Yet, we often don’t recognize that we’ve been following someone else’s path. We just thought we were doing what we were “supposed to do.” We never knew that we could question that path. Then, if and when it occurs to us to question that path, it can cause us to feel disoriented, afraid, and out of sorts: “Well, if I don’t follow this path, then what path am I supposed to follow? Where am I supposed to go from here?” Again, these are not questions that are meant to be navigated by alone. Getting support can help us see where we got off our own path, where we’ve been following other people’s footsteps, and where we could go from here.

• Being encouraged to grow: When we try to do everything on our own, we’re missing out on other perspectives that could open our eyes, minds, and hearts. Sure, you can read a bunch of books, maybe take some online courses, or watch some documentaries. But, in the end, who is challenging you to grow? Who’s planting new seeds for your growth? Who’s holding you accountable for taking steps that will help you grow? Getting support can help us develop greater self-awareness and accountability for our growth for this next chapter of our lives.

And, if none of those benefits resonate with you, look at it this way: Do you take a daily vitamin? Or try to eat healthy? Or try to move your body every day? Or even try to get rest? Basically do you try to somehow support your body?

If so, what’s the reason you want to support your body?

Maybe it’s so that you can live longer, feel better, play with your kids more, not have pain when you walk up the stairs, or try to manage a health condition.

Whatever the reason, your body needs you—the person in charge of that body—to support it. You don’t just tell your body “good luck, you don’t need help feeding yourself or taking care of yourself today. Do it all by yourself.”

At least I hope you don’t . . . .

Well, your mind, heart, soul, emotions . . . they need your support too. Your whole self—your whole body, mind, soul—need support.

And there is absolutely no shame in asking for support for your whole damn self.

In fact, as I’ve learned recently, asking for and receiving support as a 51-year-old single woman has been the kindest thing I could do for myself and, consequently, for others around me.

It’s helping me show up for my life and the people in my life—including you, honey—in the ways that I want to be able to show up.

For me, leaning into getting support—from small things to bigger things—takes some of the load off of my tiny little human shoulders so that I can move through life a little more upright, with a little more ease.

And here’s the thing: It does not take courage to do everything on your own. It does not take courage to stuff away your longing and those pangs in your heart that you’ve started noticing in your 40’s and 50’s. And it does not make you a badass to pull yourself up, all by yourself, by your bootstrap.

I’m not saying that asking for help makes you a badass or that if you can’t ask for support then you don’t have courage. No way in hell am I saying that. I fully recognize the decades of socialization, beliefs, and patterns that have to be peeled back for us to GenX’ers to lean into asking for support.

What I am saying is that the first step in asking for support is recognizing all the beliefs and messaging you’re holding onto that tell you that asking for support is unacceptable.

So, if the thought of asking for support makes you cringe . . . please know that I hear you. And, I invite you to question why that is.

How to Lean into Support

Once you start to peel back the layers on the socialization, beliefs, and patterns that underlie the resistance to asking for and receiving support, then you can ever so gently lean into asking for and receiving support.

How?

By starting with small asks.

For example:

• asking a friend to let you call them just so they can listen—without giving advice—to you process, vent, or rage about something you’re challenged by right now.

• hiring a housekeeper or lawn service to do some work for you so that you don’t have to

• allowing someone to hold the door open for you

• fully receiving a compliment—without trying to make a joke about it or scoff it off

• taking your friend up on their offer to treat you to lunch and just saying “thank you” to them

Starting with small asks is how we learn to build that muscle of asking for and receiving support.

This Week’s Invitation

This week, I invite you to think of one way—no matter how small—that you could lean into asking for more support.

And drop a comment below to let me what that is, or if that’s something that you’d like some help with!